Also Known As
by evieeden
Summary: Natasha was sent to watch over Tony Stark. Just watch! Those were her orders. Anything else was just improvisation.
1. Natalie Rushman

**So as part of my great rewatch of all the MCU films the other day – I keep getting distracted and running back to Winter Soldier – I watched Iron Man 2 once…or maybe twice. And since I loved writing Natasha/Tony during my advent fics, I decided to do it all over again. So, I hope you like this first chapter and thanks so much for taking the time to read it. Cheers.**

 **As always I own nothing to do with Marvel.**

 **Natalie Rushman**

"You. What's your name?"

"Rushman, Natalie Rushman."

It had almost been too easy. Show up looking presentable – modest, but attractive – she knew how to play the game and hopefully Stark would take the bait.

She had volunteered to take the papers over to Pepper Potts, knew that her colleagues would assume that she was trying to curry favour with the new CEO, but her bait was altogether different.

She had seen Tony Stark from a distance in at headquarters, heard about his illness from Fury, but he was different than she'd expected up close.

Dressed in workout gear, he was relaxed, less imposing. There was no trace of performance or artifice on his face as he watched her hand the file to Pepper to sign. There was energy though, barely contained energy that rippled throughout the room.

Stark's bodyguard, Happy, seemed content to move around it, but she could feel Pepper stiffening, her shoulders hunching.

Interesting. Clearly Potts wasn't on the same wavelength as Stark was.

"Front and centre, enter the church."

Pepper tried to protest but she reassured her with a smile and an offhand comment. She knew how to humour people… she also knew how to catch someone's attention.

Slipping her shoes off, Natasha slid between the ropes and stood in front of Stark, running her eyes impersonally over him.

Physically he appeared to be healthy, although his sweats hid a multitude of issues, his face was flushed from the exercise and he took a swig from a bottle that apparently contained a chlorophyll smoothie. If he'd been any other rich man, she would have rolled her eyes at his pretentiousness. As it was, she knew that he was only drinking it to try and prolong his life.

She met his eyes again and realised that he had been studying her as closely as she had been analysing him.

There was intelligence, real intelligence, behind those eyes. She needed to remind herself of that.

"What?"

She kept her face carefully blank but blinked when she realised that he had noticed her attention. It was the first time she had slipped up; normally her targets were too busy staring at her other attributes to notice what she was doing.

She saw the moment he recognised he wasn't going to get an answer from her and took another gulp of his drink.

"Happy, give her a lesson."

She exchanged words with Hogun about her boxing experience, answering on automatic as she struggled to hear what Stark was saying to Pepper. At one point he asked how she spelled her name and she knew he was running a search on her. They had prepared for that, although she wasn't sure her secure cover would last if he decided to dig a little deeper.

The voices behind her got lower and lower until she was straining to hear and Pepper's louder, "No, it's not," made her swing her head around to see what they were disagreeing about.

Pepper looked angry, high spots on colour on her face, while Stark seemed more contemplative.

She didn't hear the words Happy spoke, but she had been working too long under too dangerous circumstances for a punch to take her unawares.

Grabbing his fist, she twisted it around, using her momentum to swing her legs up and around his neck, throwing him off balance and pinning him to the floor. She grunted as she held him down, pushing against his flailing body. In the background she heard a high-pitched shriek and a low cheer of encouragement.

She blinked and came back to herself.

She had forgotten – not for long, just for a moment – but she had dropped her cover at the perceived 'attack'.

Scrambling to her feet, Natasha straightened her clothes and ducked out of the boxing ring, slipping her shoes back on. She kept her head lowered as she fought to get rid of the blank face she usually wore when fighting so her enemies couldn't tell what she was thinking and slip back into 'Natalie Rushman from Legal'.

Stark gleefully called a TKO and rang the bell at the side of the ring before moving around to stand in front of her, those intelligent eyes watching her carefully again.

Natasha took a deep breath and grabbed her clipboard, holding it between them almost as a defence.

"I need your impression." She had her professional face back on as she met his eyes once more.

Stark frowned at her.

"I don't know, you have a quiet reserve… Umm… you have an old soul…"

She almost smiled at his description of her. _An old soul…_

She interrupted him. "I meant your fingerprint."

"Right. Of course." He almost seemed disappointed that she was back to being business-like. He stamped his finger in ink and pressed it against the document before handing it back again and turning to smile at Pepper.

Natasha shot the pair of them a smile that didn't meet her eyes. "Will that be all, Mr Stark?"

"Yes! Thank you." Potts quickly answered, stopping any reply from Stark. Her own smile was even more fake than Natasha's and twice as condescending.

Stamping out her territory, Natasha thought, noting Stark's own surprise at the sharp reply. It wasn't uncommon in her line of work, but as far as intelligence said, Potts and Stark, though affectionate, weren't a couple.

Still, she smiled and nodded at the dismissal before spinning on her heel and walking calmly out of the room, eyes burning into her back as she left.

She could almost feel what he was going to say before she heard it, just as she reached the door to the gym.

"I want one."

"No," was Potts' immediate reply.

Natasha smiled as she left the building. Jealous almost-lover or not, Stark wanted her.

She was in.


	2. That Woman

**So here's the second part of this fic. Sorry it's taken so long for me to get out, but things have been manic around here. Anyway, I hope you like it and thanks so much for reading.**

 **As always, I own nothing to do with Marvel.**

 **That Woman**

Working in the back office in Stark's private jet, she cursed herself.

She was there to monitor him, to keep him alive if the Palladium in his chest finally took hold of his organs. Sure, she was there to assess him for Fury's Avengers Initiative as well, but it would be no good having Iron Man listed as a member on file if Tony Stark was dead in real life.

Trouble was that he was so… reckless.

She wasn't sure if that was a side effect of him knowing that he was about to die, or if he was like this all the time (sources indicated it was probably a bit of both) but she couldn't have anticipated him vanishing off to the bathroom for a minute only to show up a heartbeat later on the racing track, fireproof suit already on.

All she could do when the Russian appeared, without giving herself away, was follow Pepper's order to get Happy and the suit.

She had watched, pressed against the glass with the rest of the spectators, willing him to get up and get out of the car, to get the suit on in time. She was itching to get out there and fight too, but that's not what Natalie Rushman would have done. So no matter Natalie's self-defence skills, she simpered and cried out from her safe vantage point just like everyone else did.

Luckily, Stark prevailed, but he was battered, beaten, broken. She didn't think she'd ever seen that particular look on his face before after he returned from the jail, not in public anyway. Not even after he'd returned from Afghanistan and she'd seen him on the press conference announcing that Stark industries was no longer manufacturing weapons. It was a different kind of look.

A different kind of knowing.

Pepper was not happy with either of them.

She could hear Stark clattering around in the kitchen, trying to make a meal for the two of them to appease her. Eventually he emerged and she strained her ears to hear their conversation.

There was some chatter about an omelette – something she presumed Stark had made while cooking – and then she clearly heard him ask Pepper to go to Venice with him.

There it was. He was running away from his ordinary life and reaching out for Potts to be with him.

It was strange, she guessed, for someone like him to face his mortality. She had done it before, many many times, but then the fear of dying had been drilled out of her as a child and she always knew that she would die either in battle or after as a consequence of a mission she had undertaken. There you were braced for death with every fibre of your being, so dying in those circumstances was of little consequence.

Stark had faced death too, she reminded herself, in Afghanistan and then after with the construction of the Arc Reactor and the Iron Man suit. He faced death every time he stepped out to do good in that suit, more so because what was powering it was the only thing keeping him alive.

She thought that's what made it different.

In Afghanistan and in his dealings with Stane, Stark had kept it together, acting to push things forward to keep himself alive, to escape from his capture, to survive the torture they put him through. He had made it through all that without falling apart.

Natasha guessed it had to happen sooner or later.

And from what she could tell the blood poisoning was a painful, drawn-out way to die.

She had known a Czech girl once who had been on a mission and cut her leg – an innocent injury usually – but not been able to treat it as she was deep in hiding at the time. By the time she had reached civilisation, the burn had already set in and her organs were failing. Natasha remembered the pale, sickly green tinge to the other girl's skin as she had lay trembling and sweating in the safe house, vomiting up stomach acid every couple of hours.

It was an undignified and painful way to go and Natasha wouldn't wish it on anyone.

It wasn't as if Stark could be treated in the normal way either otherwise he would already be cured, but in this case what was killing him was also keeping him alive. He had no other choices and she doubted he would let anyone else near his chest for a while.

"You want to go to Venice?" Pepper was disbelieving.

Stark began speaking, too loud and too fast for her to catch, but she surmised from Pepper clipped responses about needing to be there for the company at this time of change that he wasn't getting very far.

Finishing the paperwork to begin repairs on the race car Stark's team owned, she gathered the other documents that needed signing and took them in to the pair, carefully masking her features once more so that she was the competent assistant and not an interested party.

Stark and Pepper were sat across a small table from each other in reclining seats, but the table, with what looked like an undercooked omelette on it, may as well have been an ocean. Pepper's expression was barely welcoming and instead she seemed to be annoyed and tired with Stark's behaviour.

Natasha could understand why, but at the same time it was so obvious that Stark was struggling with something, that he wasn't well. He was pale in a way he had never seemed before and the creases in his face from a life spent grinning and smiling for others instead was creased with worry and tiredness. He looked… lost.

It was a feeling Natasha knew well.

This was it, she thought as she hid behind the doorway, one eye on the couple. This was the moment that could either make or break this relationship.

Stark was reaching out for once and she fully expected the other woman would reciprocate, given her latent feelings for him.

Instead the other woman smiled faintly at Stark's stuttering. "Not everyone runs on batteries, Tony."

Pepper closed her eyes, ending the conversation.

Stark winced and stared aimlessly out the window. Against her better judgement, Natasha felt a pang of sympathy for him.

"Miss Potts, Mr Stark, I have the paperwork for the car and for the legal team to begin work on seizing the leftover materials from Vanko's arc reactor, since it's proprietry technology."

Pepper's lips thinned at her entrance and she looked Natasha up and down carefully in a way she hadn't done when they had first met, given that she probably didn't realise that Natasha would be sticking around for a while.

Handing Pepper the legal paperwork, she carefully placed the racing paperwork on the table in front of Stark, careful not to pass it directly to him. As she stepped back, she thought she vaguely caught a hint of a smile on Stark's face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared.

"Is there anything else you require?"

Stark opened his mouth to answer her, but Pepper beat him to it. "No, that will be all."

Natasha nodded, but glanced towards Stark before leaving – technically he was her boss, not the woman silently fuming in front her.

His eyes slid towards Pepper before he smiled faintly again. "No…thank you."

Against her better judgement, Natasha smiled back at him - a genuine smile, one that only a few people could draw from her, rather than her usual mask - before turning and leaving.

She was barely out of the main cabin when Pepper began to hiss at Stark.

"What was _that_?"

"What was what?" A faintly challenging tone had come into Stark's voice.

"That! You and her…that… _that woman_!"

Natasha nearly smiled at that. It certainly wasn't the worse thing she had ever been called, but she had thought Potts was classier than that.

Stark sounded puzzled. "Natalie?"

"Yes, Natalie," Pepper practically spat. "Your eyes were practically out of your head."

Stark's voice lowered and Natasha thought he sounded like he would drop of exhaustion before Pepper noticed. "They weren't and I wasn't doing whatever it is that you think. I was just thanking her; you're always telling me I should be more considerate of people."

Natasha winced at that, imagining the look on Pepper's face at that moment.

The woman's anger was plainly audible in her voice. "Don't you dare do that. I don't even know why you hired her in the first place."

Now it was Stark who sounded irritated. "I needed a PA, you know that."

"And I told you that I had several suitable candidates lined up for interview."

There was a pause and then Stark spoke again in a tone of voice that Natasha was fairly certain he had never made public before. "Which one of us is it that you don't trust exactly?"

Pepper scoffed. "It's not about trust."

"Isn't is?"

"Tony…" There was a pause. "You know how you get…"

A clatter came from behind her and Natasha quickly darted away from the main cabin and into the small office at the back. She was seated calmly in the desk chair, typing calmly away when Happy stuck his head around the door.

"Everything okay in?" he asked.

She smiled politely up at him, mask firmly back in place. "Yes, thank you. Just finishing up the incident reports for the race track."

He laughed wryly. "Yeah, you'll get used to filling out incident reports for the finance department. Just let know if they start giving you crap for it. God knows they should be used to Tony by now, but every now and then Carson will kick up a fuss."

"Thank you." Natasha could take of herself, as Hogun well knew, but a small part of her thought he was sweet for making the offer.

That was the problem though. She couldn't afford to think like that; especially not when she was undercover. She knew all too well how kindness could twist into something darker once people saw the real her. No, she needed to stay focused, stay on target, just do the job and get out.

These people were nothing to her really and just because Fury had somehow taken a personal interest in Stark and his people didn't mean that she should do the same.

She would keep watch and maintain her distance – keep Stark semi-hooked and Pepper thinking that she was _that_ kind of woman – and eventually the man's true side would out.

From today's events, she knew that would be sooner rather than later.


	3. Miss Rushman

**Here's the latest chapter of this story – it sort of got away from me. I really hope you enjoy reading it.**

 **Miss Rushman**

Stark was going ahead with his birthday party.

It was as clear as glass to Natasha that he didn't want to, but equally clear that he felt like he had to, like this was what was expected of him.

Pepper seemed oblivious to his internal turmoil, as did James Rhodes who had stopped by the mansion earlier to check in on Stark after Monaco.

Natasha found herself wondering about the kind of people Stark surrounded himself with, the ones he trusted to watch his back. On the one hand, he obviously believed in these people enough to let his guard down around them and they certainly seemed able to cope with the billionaire's manic and erratic behaviour, but on the other hand, they seemed equally able to ignore their 'friend' when he was exhibiting one of the most blatant cries for help that Natasha had ever seen.

Pepper was caught up in the drama of officially being seen to do a job that she had unofficially been doing for the better part of fifteen years and Rhodes was pandering to his bosses, irrespective of his friend's needs. He was two steps away from grabbing one of the suits for himself and while Natasha didn't exactly think that Stark would object, she was worried about having such a weapon in the hands of the US Military. God knows what kind of crap they'd drag Hammer in to add to it.

That was another issue: Hammer.

He'd been in Stark's shadow for too long and she could feel him itching to get one up, especially in light of his military contract being revoked following the senate hearing. She didn't know what kind of shit he was messed up with, but she did know that French prison cells didn't just blow up on their own. Vanko was still in play too somehow.

But the party was still going ahead, full of the vacuous and vacant and in her best falling-for-her-boss guise, so too would Natalie Rushman be. She would have planned to wear her best little black dress, but muted colours would probably remind Stark too much of Potts and she didn't want him to have any…regrets.

She had picked out one of her 'party girl' outfits – a tight, leopard-print number that she had last worn to seduce a Russian oligarch – and mentally prepared herself to woo Stark.

When she sidled into his bedroom where he was getting ready though, her plans practically fell out of the window.

Stark looked…sad. Not just a little upset, but genuinely devastated. In the dim lighting it took her a second to spot the device he was using to monitor his blood toxicity and the reason behind his mood became apparent.

She studied him for a moment, just while he wasn't aware of her presence. It was so strange, she thought, to meet someone who wasn't in the intelligence community who was everything she expected and yet not everything she expected too. Normally she'd expect some level of subterfuge to account for his ability to mask his feelings, but really she expected it just came from being the only son of a very rich weapons developer. The eyes of the media on him all his life…

She would have worn a mask in public too.

Stark pinched the bridge of his nose and his head dipped down. Natasha forced herself to interrupt before he could get too morose.

"I've got the watches you wanted to look at."

Stark jolted and immediately began to button his shirt up, covering the arc reactor. "Just set them over there."

She did as asked and then began mixing him a drink. He stuttered some half-formed thoughts about the party and then sat up straighter when she brought his martini over.

Unable to resist the temptation, she arched an eyebrow as she handed it over. "Dirty enough for you?"

He nearly swallowed his tongue and she had to fight off the uncharacteristic giggles that threatened to burst out.

"That's…umm… I'll take a look at the grey one." Stark coughed and indicated one of the watches. As she fetched it, he eyed her again, a bit more cautiously this time, as if he could tell that she was only playing around. She deliberately turned away from those perceptive eyes, reminding herself that Stark wasn't one of her usual dumb subjects, and picked up the foundation to cover up the ugly bruises he had managed to pick up in Monaco. "Where did you say you were from again?"

Natasha brushed over the question. "Legal."

He huffed out a quiet breath at that, but didn't push any further. Instead he made some comment about how it was a bad time for an extravagant birthday party. She hummed and agreed without really paying attention.

She powdered another layer of cover-up onto his face as she considered how to phrase the report Fury would inevitably want after this party.

"Natalie, can I… call you Natalie?"

She hummed in response as she finished the last touches to his face. She would have to let Fury know about his erratic behaviour of course, it was very publicly and explicitly done. Probably some leftover form of PTSD from his time in Afghanistan, but then, who of them didn't have some type of it?

"If this was your last birthday party," the serious tone of his voice made her focus on him and it was in that moment that she realised how close they were, "that you were ever going to have? What would you do?"

He was scared, she realised. He was so scared and he was letting her see that fear. He was reaching out in possibly the only way he knew how.

It was daunting to have someone look at her like this, to have someone put their trust in her, if only for a little while, if only so that she could reassure him that what he was doing right now – flaunting what was left of his life in the most extravagant way possible – was the right thing for him to do to cope until a solution could be found to his blood poisoning.

She offered him the only kind of reassurance she could. "I would do whatever I wanted, with whoever I wanted to do it."

She put a hint of suggestiveness into her voice and he leaned in towards her slightly, before recoiling back abruptly.

"Yes, I'll take this one."

He suddenly remembered the watch he'd been holding and wrapped it around his wrist. The shift in tone had her putting some distance between them. It wouldn't be good for the mission to make him uncomfortable.

It wouldn't be good for _him_ to be even more stressed and uncomfortable than he already was.

"Of course." She put the foundation to one side and then turned back to face Stark once more, her best helpful-yet-professional face on. "Will that be all, Mr Stark?"

A faint flicker of a smile crossed his face at the question and she inwardly cursed herself for using a phrase that clearly reminded him of someone else, probably Pepper.

 _Get close to him_ , Fury's voice reminded her. _Make him trust you so we can find out how bad the situation is, and so we can find out what kind of man he really is._

Well, she had his trust or, at least, some form of it. Now she just had to get closer to him, get him to confide in her if possible. Pepper was an obstacle to that, although she did think that the other woman was helpfully removing herself without any suggestion from her.

He nodded with a wry smile. "That will be all, Miss Rushman."

She wore a leopard print dress. Longer in length than some of the other dresses she saw being worn around the party, but one that flattered all her curves. She stuck close to Stark's side as he began to greet guests, at first in the guise of his loyal assistant, but then just because she was having a good time.

Usually that only happened when she was on missions with Clint.

Stark, somewhat unsurprisingly, was fun to be around during a party.

They swept through the room, her arm wrapped around his, laughing at the antics going on around them, drinking round after round of shots and shouting out playlist suggestions to the DJ.

At one point, one of the many girls invited, who she was sure Tony didn't actually know, commented on how hot she found the Iron Man suit. When she made a comment about not minding taking its owner for a ride, Natasha snorted. She tried to cover it up with a cough, but from the look Stark shot her, he had heard.

When they were circulating again, he leaned in. "You were laughing."

Natasha forced a serious expression on her face, but she knew that Stark could see right through it. "Was I?"

"Hmmm." He contemplated her from behind his sunglasses for a minute and then grinned. "You wouldn't want to take me for a ride?" The come on wasn't seriously meant so Natasha had no problem smiling sweetly back at him, rather than introducing her knee to his balls.

"I think taking your suit for a ride would be more interesting."

He laughed at that, free, easy, accepting the rebuff without complaint. "With all the upgrades, it probably would be."

He pulled back and looked at her for a moment, the expression on his face similar to the one he had first given her in the gym, as if he was trying to look past the mask and figure her out. His smile changed slightly and she knew he had come to some kind of decision.

"Wait here."

He disappeared back in the direction of his bedroom and Natasha took the opportunity to do a sweep around the room. Pepper hadn't arrived yet, neither had Rhodey, but then it was relatively early still.

She was just admiring the gaudiness of an actress's chandelier-style necklace, when Stark returned, a sly smile on his face. Natasha was immediately wary.

"So, you want to take the Iron Man suit for a ride, huh?"

Caution, inbuilt after years of training had her biting her tongue. He laughed, seemingly finding her silence funny.

"Ta da!" He held up a gauntlet from the suit, with a secondary cable leading out of it. As she watched, he reached up under his shirt and attached the cable to one of the connection points surrounding his arc reactor. Natasha caught a brief glimpse of his stomach, surprisingly toned for a businessman, but then she supposed he did a lot of work by hand, and the black veins running down from his chest where the device that had saved his life was slowly killing him. "I'm the tooth fairy."

Natasha scrunched up her nose. "The tooth fairy?"

"Well, the wish fairy more like, or something like that anyway. I make dreams come true." He winked at her and she couldn't help the smile that crossed her face. "Come on," he waved the gauntlet at her, "you know you want to."

That was the problem, she did want to.

It would be irresponsible though, and ill-advised and reckless and foolhardy.

And she really _really_ wanted to.

 _Natalie Rushman wouldn't have hesitated._

It was probably unhealthy to think of herself as having multiple personalities, but hey, when embracing one of her personas would get her what she wanted…

"Okay."

"Okay?" Stark did that peering-through-his-sunglasses thing at her and then he grinned – wide, open and honest. "Let's do it!"

Holding the machinery steady, he helped her wriggle her fingers into the gauntlet, and then spun her around so that her back was pressed to his chest. He laughed a bit drunkenly and she echoed him with a breathy giggle. The gauntlet was surprisingly heavy, but she already felt more powerful just with the one piece of the suit on.

This was such a bad idea. _Such_ a bad idea.

"What do I aim at?" She bounced lightly on the toes of her shoes, the excitement only half-Natalie. The rest was all Natasha.

"Ummm, the sculpture?" He waved towards an ice sculpture of Iron Man. "I'm melting. The only thing we can do for me at this point is to end it dramatically."

He delivered the line with a smile, but the words were just a little too close to home.

Natasha ducked her head, her exciting waning. "I don't know. This is a bad idea."

She just needed to remember to stay on task, stay focused, be flirty but not too flirty.

"Oh come on," Stark cajoled her.

She glanced around the room quickly. She couldn't see anyone she recognised from SHIELD, but that didn't mean that no-one was there, and while she thought she could be forgiven a lot during missions, she wasn't sure that blowing up ice sculptures using a repulsor beam around civilians would be accepted.

"There's all these people around." It was a token protest and she thought that Stark knew it.

"It's for them. It's my party, it's what I want."

Stark continued to list the reasons why she should do this and as he did so, he stepped closer, warm against her back, one hand coming up to rest on her stomach, holding her against him.

"Come on. Hike it up."

The shots were starting to tell on Stark and he giggled as he helped lift the hand holding the gauntlet up. She giggled too, not drunk, but warm and hyped up on anticipation. They both snorted like idiots and Stark turned his head to survey her face for a moment. She beamed up at him, her excitement at getting her hand on a piece of the suit helping to buoy up her harmless appearance.

"On three…fire in the hull…one! Nail it!"

The repulsor whirred in preparation and then blasted a beam of energy out towards the ice sculpture, which shattered violently. Despite Stark's support, the ricochet from the gauntlet sent their arms flying over their heads and they laughed together somewhat hysterically as everyone around the gasped loudly at the sudden destruction of the sculpture.

They were drawing too much attention, her brain kicked in. She was drawing too much attention. She needed to rein it in a little, remind herself of why she was there and what her focus should be.

"Gosh," she laughed uneasily, slipping back into Natalie Rushman with a toss of her hair and resting a hand against his chest – keep him distracted from her slip, keep him hooked, but distant. "Packs a big punch, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Stark smiled down at her, but then caught a glimpse of something behind her. "Pep! Pepper!"

Oh. Well, she supposed it was a good thing that Pepper hadn't walked in earlier on when they were throwing shots back; at least she could regain some kind of professionalism.

Stark lit up at the sight of Pepper. "You came." He just sounded so delighted. "My two girls." He grinned down at her before Pepper approached them warily and he returned his attention to the other woman.

She took the opportunity to study their interaction. It was… stilted, and she wondered how much of that was her presence and how much was their inability to communicate.

Stark was like a little puppy, snapping around Pepper's heels, trying to get her attention and approval, while she just looked down at him.

She knew that dealing with Stark was difficult – God knows, she was ready to tear her hair out at some points and had only been working for him for about four days – but a part of her thought less of the other woman for the way she responded to him with barely concealed annoyance.

"Here."

She snapped back to full attention when Stark tried to pass off the present that Pepper had given him to go with the others.

Natalie smiled up at him, practically simpering, and waved the gauntlet that was still connected to his arc reactor. "We're attached." The small, petty part of her that wanted to provoke a reaction out of Pepper made her sidle closer and add a hint of suggestion to her voice. "We're very attached."

Pepper rolled her eyes and grabbed the present back. "I'll take it."

She walked off even as Stark was offering to get her a drink. He was clearly upset by the rebuff, but tried to shake it off.

"That's not… I don't… That's her stuff, that's not my stuff, that's her…" He shook his head and then smiled back down at Natasha, but this time there was something a little bit more forced about it. "Let's go do some more shots."

She followed him to the back of the room where he disconnected them.

"So, what do you think?" he asked her as she slid the gauntlet off. "Worth the ride?"

"Definitely," she took a step closer to him and he gazed down at her. There was something in his eyes though that warned her against getting any closer. "Although I'm surprised your arms don't get tired all the time."

He was about to reply when a voice came from behind them. "Excuse me, Miss Rushman? Can I just speak to you for a moment about the fireworks?"

The moment was broken and she and Stark stepped away from each other. Natasha stared at Stark for another moment before she spun around and put a professional smile on her face. "Yes, of course."

She followed the man who had interrupted, but glanced back towards Stark as she left.

He looked small standing there against the wall, one gauntlet in his hands. Small and alone, huddled at the back of the room during his own party, while everyone else laughed and joked and danced around him.

She felt a pang of sympathy for the man before her attention was caught up in making sure the technicians didn't set the house on fire when setting off the firework to go off in an hour.

When she next saw Stark he was dressed fully in the suit, shooting different things out of the air to the delight of his guests. He had clearly been drinking more in her absence and it seemed clear that he had decided to take her words to heart.

Pepper tried to stop him, but eventually gave up.

Natasha was just about to step in when she saw a face she recognised across the room. Braddock wasn't doing a very good job of blending in with the rich or the beautiful, but his presence made things more difficult. She would have to be careful about what she did from now on as she knew every move she made in public would be reported back to Fury.

Natasha caught sight of Pepper marching towards her, a scowl on her face. "This is all your fault."

Well that was unfair.

She shook her head, ready to defend herself when all of a sudden, Rhodes made his grand appearance, decked out in one of Stark's Iron Man suits. He began throwing orders out at people to disperse and everyone scattered.

Natasha took advantage of the mad rush of people to separate herself from Pepper, although she kept an eye on the confrontation currently happening between Stark and Rhodey.

"You don't deserve to wear one of these."

She saw the moment Rhodey's words cut deep. Stark's invention, his creation, the thing that kept him alive being taken by his friend, being stolen essentially for the greed of this country's military…

Americans were such self-serving hypocrites.

A repulsor blast smashed one of the windows and everyone ran. With one last glance back to the battling friends, Natasha left with them. There was no way, she could spin this so Fury didn't intervene. The eye-witnesses and Braddock's presence ensured that.

The best she could do now was damage control so that Stark could get more help than anyone was currently providing. If Fury was going to step in – and he _would_ step in – then she wanted to make sure that he was actually useful.

Stark needed a chance.

She chose not to question why she wanted that. It was irrelevant.


End file.
